


whenever you’re ready

by caandleknight



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Clarke draws Bellamy, Dancing, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, In Denial, Pining, Post S2, Romance, Trauma, reflecting on how they hated each other, the drink they deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26170240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caandleknight/pseuds/caandleknight
Summary: Prompt: Clarke stays after Mount Weather : Clarke sketches Bellamy to ignore her guilt : they dance. All in one.Oh, and they finally get that drink.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Octavia Blake/Lincoln
Comments: 13
Kudos: 48





	whenever you’re ready

_Prompt: Clarke stays after Mount Weather : Clarke draws Bellamy : they dance. All in one._

_Oh, and they finally get that drink._

..

He’s not _that_ attractive.

He isn’t really. She can see flaws in him: sometimes his hair grows a little too long and it mushrooms around his head. A few scars linger around his lips. He has a double-chin when he tilts his head down, (just like everyone else). That’s all she has so far—in terms of physical appearance—and she’s had this list for _weeks_.

(Her list of personality flaws is much bigger. He’s selfish, and he’s an asshole. That’s why he made her stay.

He helped her pull that lever because he’s selfish, right?)

His flaws are what make him so interesting to draw, even over a campfire and moonshine. His chin dimple—it’s not perfectly centred—but it only adds to his appeal, especially when he ducks his head in a smile, like he’s afraid the world will see him happy, (and take it away.)

(Clarke notices how, since the dropship, her lists have shortened and it vexes her.)

Across camp Jaha, he chats with his sister as he clutches a silver cup in his hand. His back is void of any rifle, and it’s an odd sight. They don’t need to carry weapons everywhere they go anymore, because they’re safe, because the threat is gone, (because she murdered the Mountain Men. It’s easier to call them Mountain Men: they sound more like a threat and less like a victim.) The night sky is inky with innocent stars as soft music thumps through the patchy grass and crackles with the fire. Miller chats with a boy named Bryan to her left and Clarke’s cheek twitch as they laugh over spilled moonshine.

(Jasper is passed out on the dirt to her right, mussed and snoring. Even sleeping, he just looks angry.)

A violin plays softly with a base guitar and a flute. They’re an odd assortment of instruments, but it’s all that made it to the ground from the Ark and Clarke’s learned to never complain about gifts. For only a moment, Clarke just closes her eyes and listens, lulling her head to the tune.

The heights of the strings and the breathy notes of the flute thrums on her skin, pulling away her sins. She relaxes (until she remembers, like always). She hasn’t heard music since her short residence in Mount Weather.

_Mount Weather_. She clenches her fists and breathes heavily to stop the aching in her bones as the violin dips into a low melody: a tear slips by without consent, sticking to her eyelash before descending. The fire glows orange off of it and she quickly wipes it away on her sleeve.

Almost as though he senses it, Bellamy’s dark eyes glance at her softly over the flames. His pupils are blown and he almost mouthes her a question before his sister pushes his shoulder with a laugh.

Distracted, he scowls at Octavia in his special little way of trying to be intimidating. It’s never worked on Clarke or his sister. His pouting is interrupted when Clarke sees Lincoln walk up in his Arkadia-issued leather jacked and grab Octavia’s wrist, pulling her to a flat patch of earth near the musicians.

The man from the ground stomps his feet and smile the smile he only grants Octavia as she starts to bumble and hop around in his arms. It’s not the stupid slow dancing her privileged status on the Ark made Clarke learn. It’s free and fun and fast, barely in time with the music.

People start to clap in rhythm and then almost everyone’s dancing and no one consistently with the beat. Even Raven dances through her limping as she laughs. Wick holds her by the elbows as they spin. Monty really outdid himself on the moonshine if they’re getting along.

(Almost everyone’s dancing but then Clarke sees Jasper, laying on the ground. He jolts awake with the clapping. He’s on his elbows, watching the fun and the screaming with an empty stare.

Leaning back, his eyes trace the clouds of the night. Jasper tries to count Mayas until he sleeps and sleeps for good. He has no one to dance with, because of Clarke.)

Clarke blinks away the tears, closing her heart: the clench almost makes her puke. Her eyes search for Bellamy, desperate to continue the drawing.

He’s disappeared, probably off with a girl. Her heart stutters again. Clarke can’t deal with this—she needs him—so she goes back to her sketch.

She presses black strokes into his hair, absorbing the beat of feet hitting the ground from her residence on the log. Bringing her calloused finger down to blend, she feels tears slip down her face into her mouth. They taste salty, like guilt.

Clarke has the urge to name the drawing, “best unity day ever”. After all, when she examines her sketch, that’s all she can think of. Bellamy stands tall, holding a drink and a gun while he smirks, and even if the drawing isn’t _really_ him, it calms her heart a little.

Through the dancing and the genocide, Bellamy is always there, beside her.

Maybe, this new Unity Day is the best. It’s the first of its kind after all. A new date—January 15—and a new home. The final peace treaty with the Grounders was signed this morning, courtesy of Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin of the Sky People: they have all truly found _unity_.

(Clarke just wants her sanity.) So they drink, and they dance while fire mixes with moon to light up the night.

It’s been months since their little chats about deserving drinks and shooting grounders, and not much has changed between them. Except as she runs the pencil over his chin dimple, her list of problems has shortened. Except now, they’re a little bit kinder towards one another. Oh, and they hug, and she kissed his cheek once, before he convinced her to stay, murmuring “ _together_ ,” and “ _this isn’t your fault.”_

(“It’s _ours_.”)

Caught in the moment, she traces the lines of her piece harshly with lead, running over completed picture out of stubbornness. It’s been a long time since she drew something that made her happy: Maya’s face filled her pages along with faces of children who deserved the world, but burned to death because of her (“ _us_ ,” he would say, “ _because of us_.”).

She has to keep tracing Bellamy; she doesn’t want to be done with the portrait, afraid of where her mind will lead her when she makes that last stroke of lead.

“It looks nice,” The lead of her pencil snaps under the pressure of her surprise. Over the light buzz of chatter around them, he continues, “but it’s me, so of course it does.” (He’s arrogant, add that to the list.) He sits beside her, two metallic cups in his hand, one with her name on it. (He’s considerate, take arrogant off.)

“You’re an idiot.” Her voice holds none of the bite it used to. The sketch book sits in her lap with her tapping fingers as she watches his knees bounce almost nervously. His gaze flicks from the dancing to her as he shoots out one of his cups, and he nearly spills it, forcing a smirk.

Her heart stutters: he’s nervous, and Clarke wants to question why.

“You looked like you could use one,” he whispers, answering her silent probe. Of course. Bellamy can always tell when her heart is trapped in Mount Weather, waiting for life to pump through it.

He was nervous about how to approach it, about how to comfort her, like a good leader and friend, and for no other reason. Of course. (Why would he be interested anyway?)

“Thank you.” She takes the cup lightly, resting it in her lap over top of her drawing, but she doesn’t drink it. Clarke watches the liquid inside the cup. It pulses with the stomping feet and the out-of-tune voices.

“Clarke?” He questions her, inclining his head softly as his soft curls follow. Bellamy’s eyes are doing that thing where he stares at her with openness and vulnerability, and she can’t keep his gaze. She looks anywhere but his face, tracing her eyes along his leather jacket lightly. Nodding her head, she acknowledges his questioning tone. Bellamy doesn’t respond, clenching his jaw. His cheek ticks.

God, they suck at words.

( _“You can talk to me,”_ and _“what’s wrong?_ ” Try to escape his lips but he just _stares_.)

Her bottom lip starts to quiver softly in the flicker of orange flames and he takes that as his cue. (They don’t fucking need words.) Bellamy sets his cup on the patchy, yellowing grass, simultaneously inching towards her. He softly pulls the drink from her grasp to set it by her feet, hesitantly grabbing her sketchbook to do the same. As her pencil rattles to the dirt, he kneels before her, completely open.

(“ _Whenever you’re ready._ ” She whispered to him once.)

She meets him halfway—or more than that: he barely moves—throwing her arms around his neck as all of her breath escapes her.

Bellamy’s arms collapse around her as he presses his face into her hair. Her nose nuzzles into his neck, breathing him in. From their knees, he murmurs with a throaty and crackling shutter. “ _Clarke_.” God, _fuck_ words.

An avalanche of laughter falls from the dancing crowd as Murphy drunkenly sways his hips comically to the steadily rising music.

She squeezes Bellamy, pulling at the leather of his jacket and completely absorbing into his arms. Clarke understands every unspoken syllable.

(“ _You’re forgiven._ ” You are. Please, believe it.)

The heat from the bonfire absorbs into their dark clothes as he pulls her to her feet, whispering, “dance with me,” in her ear. Her hair is pulled half-up in her usual twist and he can pretend she’s the innocent Clarke, the privileged one. The one who isn’t broken (because of him.)

“I can’t dance.” It’s true. She had those lessons, but she never listened, no matter how many times Wells told her, “it’s one step, _then_ two.” _Wells_. She pushes herself into Bellamy again, because everyone’s dead and it’s all her fault: he’s here.

“I can’t either. We can learn together.” _Together_. She’s dragged by his hand as tears pour down her cheeks. They’re in this together: he’s here for her, and maybe, she can be here for him too.

They settle in the middle of the flailing people. He turns to her, face glowing red through his freckles, as his eyes widen at her tears. They’re so close, she can see how his eyelashes clump, even through the water streaming down her face. Bellamy doesn’t ask if she’s okay because he already knows the answer. Slowly, his pulls her into a rhythm, picking up her tears in his butterfly kisses as his own begin to fall down his cheeks, but they just dance and cry, even though everyone can see them. They don’t care.

In the fire light, through the harmony of violin strings and the low thrum of a base guitar, they spin each other in circles, because fuck the words: they’re in this together.

When Clarke sees Jasper, who has moved to chat with Monty at his still, her heart drops to her stomach, but Bellamy nudges her chin with his nose. (“ _Focus on_ me _, Clarke._ ” His smouldering eyes say. Selfish.) She laughs like Octavia as she steps on his feet—neglecting to apologize—and he just whispers nothings into her ears. She can’t understand his mumblings, but Clarke thinks she knows what he means when her eardrums tingle on his breath.

(The words: “ _I love you,”_ and _“together,”_ and _“please, love me too,_ ” never leave them, but it’s on the edge of their teeth.)

Maybe he got caught up in the moment: maybe he drank more than she thought he did, because as the music crescendos passed midnight, and her fingers glide into his hair, he just kisses her—because, why not?—laughing as he clanks into her teeth. Bellamy throws himself against her, clutching at her hair as she wraps her arms around his neck. She’ll always catch him in her soft lips, even when he jumps off the deep end.

(“ _You’re forgiven._ ” Are we?)

Clarke kisses him back because he’s _so_ broken, (and so is she.) She bites his bottom lip as she drags him back to her tent because, for once, the world _isn’t_ ending. She fucks him because she _can_. She loves him between their naked kisses and whispered nothings because she _means_ it. She loves him in the morning too, because he’s selfish, and arrogant, and considerate, and because she _wants_ to, even if she never says it.

(They never did get that drink. It sits by the fire with a drawing full of flaws and a Jasper, who flits through the pages of Maya after Maya and a child surnamed Lovejoy and maybe, they’ll all be okay.)

..

**Author's Note:**

> Procrastinating on cross posting, it’s here now.
> 
> I was completely inspired to finish this by PenguinofProse’s “Together”, an AU where Clarke stays at the end of season two, and it’s way more fleshed our than mine. Check it out!
> 
> Have a great day!


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